This blog was inspired by one of our fine clients during the review of one of our proposals. In the proposal and in most website design proposals you will see terminology that is standard in our industry, but may be confusing to non-web developers.
What does the word configuration, as it relates to website development mean?
Configuration by definition generally “the arrangement – or the process of making the arrangement of existing items” OR “arrangement of the parts that make up a whole”. This definition does not mean much alone, but in the web development industry is has clearly defined meaning.
When a web developer uses the word “configuration” it most accurately means “the process of appling the settings that are redaly available in any given software.”
Customization means something completely different. In the web design world it is the act of ‘hacking’ code and changing the code to create the desired effect. In most projects minor customization is performed. You need to be careful how much customization is performed within a third party software because if that software needs to be upgraded the hacked customized code will need to be completely redone.
More on this topic later….